[Bender]

Along this line can AI's find backdoors spread across multiple pieces of code and/or services? i.e. by themselves they are not back-doors, advanced penetration testers would not suspect anything is afoot but when used together they provide access.

e.g. an intentional weakness in systemd + udev + binfmt magic when used together == authentication and mandatory access control bypass. Each weakness reviewed individually just looks like benign sub-optimal code.

[cluckindan]

Start with trying to find the xz vulnerability and other software possibly tying into that.

Is there code that does something completely different than its comments claim?

[Bender]

Another way to phrase what I am asking is ... Does AI understand the context of code deep enough to know everything a piece of code can do, everything a service can do vs. what it was intended to do. If it can understand code that far then it could understand all the potential paths data could flow and thus all the potential vulnerabilities that several piece of code together could achieve when used in concert with one another. Advanced multi-tier chess so to speak.

Or put another way, each of these three through three hundred applications or services by themselves may be intended to perform x,y,z functions but when put together by happy coincidence they can perform these fifty-million other unintended functions including but not limited to bypassing authentication, bypassing mandatory access controls, avoiding logging and auditing, etc... oh and it can automate washing your dishes, too.

[DANmode]

Some models can,

depending on the length of the piece of code,

is probably the most honest answer right now.

[Bender]

Fair enough. I suspect when they reach such a point that length no longer matters then a plethora of old and currently used state sponsored complex malware will be realized. Beyond that I think the next step would be to attain attribution to both individuals and perhaps whom they were really employed by. Bonus if the model can rewrite sanitize each piece of code to remove the malicious capabilities without breaking the officially intended functions.